Both pagers and wireless devices, such as cell phones, are widely used forms of communication. Although a few two-way paging systems have been developed, paging systems are typically one-way radio communications systems. In order to send a message to a user who has a paging device, the sender contacts a paging control system, usually via a telephone or computer network. Upon accessing the paging control system, the sender can perform certain operations, including inputting a call-back number or message to be sent to the paging device or leaving a voice message for the paged user. The paging control system can then deliver the call-back number or message or the voice message to the paging device through a paging network, such as POCSAG or FLEX.
Wireless devices, such as cellular telephones, on the other hand, typically communicate through bidirectional communication systems. Many of these devices further allow for real-time bidirectional communication. For example, when an individual wishes to contact a user who has a cellular telephone, the individual usually dials the number associated with the cellular telephone from the individual's cellular or landline telephone. Once a connection is established between the two telephones, voice and other data are transmitted to and from the cellular telephone through a cellular network, such as GSM or CDMA.
The transmitters used in paging systems typically operate at a higher power level than cellular telephone transceivers. As a result, the coverage area associated with individual paging systems is often greater than the coverage area associated with individual cellular telephone, or transmission towers. For similar reasons, paging systems also tend to have greater penetration than cellular telephone systems. Moreover, unlike cellular systems, paging systems have the ability to simulcast transmissions by utilizing constructive interference to strengthen the signal, which further increases the coverage area and penetration of the paging signals. As a result, paging services are frequently available in certain geographic areas and environments where cellular telephone service is not available. Thus, paging systems generally provide increased reliability with respect to the delivery and receipt of communications as compared to cellular telephone systems.
In addition, due to their configuration, paging systems typically allow for multicasting of paging communications to multiple devices. Thus, a paging system can broadcast information to a large number of users simultaneously. Conversely, cellular telephone systems typically only allow for messages to be transmitted sequentially (i.e., to a single cellular device at a time), and cannot broadcast messages to a specific group of users simultaneously.
The need to subscribe to a paging service (in addition to a cellular service) is important for many users, such as those who work in certain time-sensitive professions. This is mainly due to the higher degree of reliability provided by paging systems. For example medical personnel and emergency workers are often required to carry a paging device in addition to their cellular telephone. In these occupations, receiving messages as reliably and as quickly as possible is extremely important. In hospitals, minutes and even seconds often make the difference between life and death. The ability to deliver messages to doctors and other medical personnel reliably and with as little delay as possible decreases the response time for medical emergencies. This, in turn, decreases the negative impacts to patient health associated with the time taken to respond to the emergency. Likewise, many emergency workers need to receive messages reliably and with the least possible delay in order to respond and react to various emergency situations effectively. Frequently, these emergencies involve life-threatening situations, in which minimal response time is vital. As a result, in these professions, even small increases in the reliability, or decreases in the delay, of message delivery and receipt can significantly increase the number of lives benefitted or saved.
In order to subscribe to both types of services, however, consumers typically have to carry, monitor and maintain two separate devices. This leads to a number of inconveniences with respect to the portability, cost and ease of use of these devices. While systems have been developed that provide an aggregated pager and cellular telephone (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,117,449), these systems have exhibited a number of problems, which has resulted in these devices failing to be adopted by consumers in any meaningful way. One drawback is that, because both paging and cellular phone functionalities are implemented through shared components, only one functionality can utilize these components at a time. Another drawback is that these devices often suffer from increased interference between the incoming paging and cellular signals, due to the extremely close proximity of the paging and cellular receivers.
These aggregated systems also experience significantly decreased battery life, due to the power requirements of implementing both cellular and paging functionalities in a single device. Moreover, these devices do not provide for acknowledgments and status messages to be sent back to the paging network in order to ensure successful delivery and receipt of the paging messages and allow for an audit trail to be recorded. In addition, these aggregated devices require a modification of the physical components of a standard cellular or other wireless device in order to incorporate the paging functionality. As a result, the paging functionality is tied to the specific aggregated device, and users cannot change devices, without either modifying the physical components of the new device or losing the paging functionality.
More recently, systems have been created (e.g., PageCopy by American Messaging; and MessageSync by Indiana Paging) which have attempted to use cellular networks in order to mimic the services offered by paging systems. These systems provide users with an application that can be installed on their cellular telephone or other wireless device that receives and displays certain messages on the device. Importantly, however, these systems do not utilize a paging network and, as such, do not provide true paging services. Instead, these systems merely use the cellular capabilities of the user's device to deliver messages to the device through a cellular network. As a result, these systems do not provide users with the advantages of paging services, such as greater coverage areas, penetration and reliability, and the ability to receive multicasted messages.
Other systems have been developed in which a pager is used to “wake-up,” or initiate a call with, a cellular telephone (e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,701,337). The purpose of these systems was to conserve the battery life of the cellular device by allowing the cellular device to go into sleep mode or power down and then be “woken-up” by the pager prior to an incoming telephone call. As a result, these systems do not provide users with paging service in addition to cellular telephone service. Accordingly, these systems do not allow users to receive and view paging messages on the user's cellular telephone or wireless device.
Additionally, there has been a significant increase over the last two decades in terrorist attacks and “active shooter” events. A common problem associated with these events is a lack of ability to transmit mass notification messages to individuals in the threat area. Without the ability to broadcast messages, there is no practical way to provide potential victims with status notifications in real-time. Also, these events are often widespread and can involve a large number of emergency or response personnel. As a result, another common problem has been the lack of ability to simultaneously provide status notifications and instructions to update and coordinate such personnel in real time.
Thus, there is a need for a system which combines the features and advantages of electronic devices, paging devices and networks, while maximizing the reliability and minimizing the delay of delivering messages to users. There is also a need for a system which can broadcast emergency messages to a large number of users simultaneously. There is further a need for a universal paging device, which is compatible with, and can communicate paging messages to, various types of electronic devices without modifying any of the physical components of such devices. In light of the beneficial qualities of paging systems, such as greater coverage areas and penetration as well as multicasting, it would be desirable to provide a system which allows users to view paging system messages on wireless devices, such as cellular telephones, and which provides acknowledgements back to the paging system to indicate successful delivery and receipt of the messages.